Category Archives: Opportunities

I’ve been reading a fair bit lately – both offline and online, a book, other people’s blogs, agents’ and publishers’ websites, etc. – and found that more publishers here in Australia accept unsolicited online submissions than I would’ve expected. I thought I’d list some of the barebones facts here for anyone interested (NB: always check the publisher’s website for detailed instructions by clicking on the name before submitting anything). If you have a similar list for the UK or US, please let me know in the comments and I’ll update the post to link to your site.

Note: Penguin and Random House are the same company but have separate publishing divisions and therefore separate submission processes. Random House only accepts snail mail submissions.

1st to 7th of every month

No poetry, educational textbooks or plays/scripts; separate instructions for children/YA

Details in email body, with 300-word synopsis and full manuscript attached separately in Word format (up to 3MB total)

As of yet, I’m undecided whether it would be a good idea for me to approach publishers directly (i.e. without securing an agent first) or not. Agents can’t pitch your work to a publisher who’s already said “No” to you. On the other hand, if your work is good enough….

Did I forget anything, or get any details wrong? Know of another publisher I should list here? Let me know in the comments.

Searching around for blogs and other useful information for aspiring authors (if you know any I should be checking out, please let me know in the comments – blogging newbie here!), I came across this opportunity from Bloomsbury on Writers & Artists:

Ouch. As someone currently struggling with what some claim is conventional wisdom that fantasy manuscripts, especially from first-time authors, should be between 80k and 100k (more on that later), that’s a bit of a kick in the nuts.

So my question is this:

Are these word limits as artificial as they seem to me, that is, do they exist mainly to discourage new writers from blabbering on without getting to the point to save printing costs, or do people really want to read shorter stories?

Because personally, when I go to the bookstore to find the next book I want to delve into, I don’t even look at the little narrow ones. I want characters to be developed, not just the bare bones of the story. I want the story to last, I want to find the first part of a series worth getting into. I want the details, the thought-processes, not just the action. Those doorstopper-sized books aren’t usually much more expensive than the little ones. Maybe I don’t know enough about real-life printing costs, and am naïve about costs to proofread manuscripts (which people don’t seem to do a good job at, I can’t read past errors without my eyes starting to bleed), but is there really good cause to want authors (ones who can otherwise prove they can write well, of course) to limit themselves by that much?